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Welcome Back to the Exchange 5.5 Administrative Model
Date of Review: Aug 3, 2008
The Bottom Line: Exchange Server 2007 with its tight integration with Windows 2000/2003 ADS and Microsoft Outlook messaging client offers the right balance of performance and scalability for your organization?s messaging needs.
Authors Notes: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is far too complex and in-depth an application to give full airing to within this forum. Therefore, I will give a broad overview of the application and it functionality.
I administer the medium-sized Exchange Server 2003 installation at my current company. Our installation is pretty straight forward and no doubt typical of the way Exchange 2003 is setup and administered in an Enterprise setting. We have both Exchange Server 2003 Standard and Enterprise boxes, and the business is in the process of moving to Microsoft s newest messaging platform, Exchange Server 2007 planned and implemented by yours truly.
There are two distinct versions of Exchange Server 2007: Standard and Enterprise both x64-bit applications. As a matter of fact the retail version of Microsoft Exchange 2007 ship only in x64-bit. The version you choose to install is based in whole or in part on your particular networking environment, user base, and the size of your organization.
For this new version of Exchange, Microsoft has completely redesigned the application, breaking the products functionality into five separate modules:
o Mailbox server role functionality: manages access to the database that contains users mailboxes and public folders. Note: Mailbox server does not transfer message between mailboxes. Hub Transfer servers manage all message transfers.
o Client Access (CA) server role functionality: supports Microsoft Outlook Web Access, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync?, Outlook Anywhere (RPC/HTTPS), POP3, and Internet Message Protocol 4 (IMAP4) protocol connections.
o Hub Transport server role: processes all mail sent throughout the exchange server organization before they are delivered to a recipient(s) inside the organization or routed to recipient(s) outside the organization. In addition the Hub Transport server can be configured to provide the following additional functionality:
o antivirus and anti-spam filtering via Microsoft Forefront, and;
o message policy compliance via a transport rules agent and journaling agent
o Edge Transport server role: accepts all email coming into an Exchange Server 2007 organization from the Internet and from other external organizations. It also routes all outbound messages to the Internet. The Edge Transport server role routes all accepted inbound messages to a Hub Transport server inside the organization. In addition, the Edge Transport server provides antivirus and anti-spam filtering via Microsoft Forefront as well as address re-writing.
o Unified Messaging server role: provides the following functionality:
o Call answering;
o Fax receiving;
o Subscriber Access;
o Auto Attendant
Note: three of the five modules, the Hub Transport, Client Access, and Mailbox have to be installed in Exchange installation.
For our implementation I installed three server with Exchange 2007 Standard Edition and two servers with Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition. For the purposes of this review I will limited myself to the discussion of the Standard edition. Exchange Server 2007 Standard Edition (Exch2007 Std. Ed.) is designed to meet the messaging and collaboration needs of small and medium-size businesses. Exch2007 Std. Ed. offers the following features:
o Support for up to (5) storage groups
o Support for up to 5 databases
o Database storage Limit: 16TB per database
o Support for Local Continuous Replication (LCR)
o Support for Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) (via SP1 Only)
o Exchange ActiveSync
o Exchange Outlook Web Access
Other Changes
If the introduction of Exchange 2000 marked a dramatic departure from Exchange 5.5 functionality, directory services, and administration, Exch2007 Std. Ed. marks a march back to the functional model of Exchange 5.5; i.e. mailbox administration has been moved back to the Exchange organization and out of AD.
In Exchange 5.5 user mailboxes were treated as objects, separate from the users network account; this functionality was moved to AD when Exchange 2000 was rolled out. Under Exchange 2000 the mailbox object has been fused with the user object so that there was a single managed object; i.e. the mailbox administrative points have been folded under the user object in AD simplifying administration. Under Exch2007 Std. Ed. Microsoft moved this functional administration back to Exchange; i.e. AD users and mailboxes can be created through the Exchange Management Console or the new Exchange Management Shell (command prompt).
Installation Notes
Installing an instance of Exch2007 Std. Ed. is no small feat. As in any large-scale application rollout proper planning needs to be implemented, and a through project plan put into place. This can even be true is you are just replacing a single server in an existing cluster, or building a single instance of Exch2007 Std. Ed.
Note (1): The Exch2007 Std. Ed. installation process will modify the ADS forest schema even if you are installing jut one server into your environment. This is true even if there is an active installation of Exchange 2003 in place.
Note (2): The Exch2007 Std. Ed. installation process will need to run Domain Prep for each domain you wish to install Exch2007 Std. Ed. into. Microsoft recommend you do a Domain Prep on any domain in the forest you anticipate you might install Exch2007 Std. Ed. Domain Prep must be run even if there is an active installation of Exchange 2003 in place.
Exchange Administration
As I mentioned above the Exchange Management Shell is new to Exch2007 Std. Ed. and introduces the command environment to Exchange. So now there are two ways to administer the messaging organization: the Management Shell and the Management Console. All Exchange administration functionality can be carried out through the Management Shell, but be forewarned there is scarce documentation on the syntax of the specific commands, so I prefer the Management Console.
As I mentioned above, mailbox creation is accomplished in Exchange and not Windows 2003 Active Directory Users & Computers (ADUC). User accounts can be created in ADUC, but under Exchange 2007, mailboxes can no longer be created and or administered there.
OWA & HTTP over RPC
Outlook Web Access (OWA) is back and has been greatly enhanced. For those unfamiliar with OWA it is a web based portal that allows users access to your Exchange installation from the Internet. Under Exch2007 Std. Ed. the look, feel, and functionality of Outlook 2003/2007 has been duplicated.
Members of the company no longer need to be connected to the corporate network to access their email; all they need is an Internet connection and their credentials. The CAS servers connect to the Back-end (Mailbox) servers running Exch2007 Std. Ed.; those servers in turn house the user mailboxes.
HTTP over RPC was introduced in Exchange 2003 Small Business Server (SBS), but greatly enhanced under Exchange 2007. HTTP over RPC allows users to connect the Outlook thick client to the corporate Exchange organization over the internet utilizing the RPC. Native support for the protocol is embedded in CAS functionality of Exch2007 Std. Ed.
Microsoft Outlook
We use Microsoft Outlook exclusively to connect to our Exchange servers and deliver email services. Outlook email client, part of the suite of applications offered with Microsoft Office, works seamlessly with Exchange Server 2003/2007. With Outlook a user can access all of the rich content Exch2007 Std. Ed. can offer, from email to conference room scheduling, to public forums, to mail groups, Outlook can handle the content. Note: support for Public Folders under Exchange 2007 has been removed.
Conclusion
E-mail has become an integral part of business, both large and small. And while small business can rely on internet based e-mail such as Yahoo.com, Earthlink.net, Gmail.com, etc, larger concerns need and rely on dedicated in-house multi-functional messaging solutions, which provide email services within and without the organization. Microsoft Exch2007 Std. Ed. with its tight integration with Windows 2003 ADS and Microsoft Outlook messaging client offers the right balance of performance and scalability to allow your organization to compete in this competitive information age.
There are of course other messaging programs on the market, but if you use the Microsoft Office suite and consequently, Microsoft Outlook, the choice is pretty clear. And as Exchange continues to mature, competitors are increasing fading into the distance.
